


Doubt

by TriplePirouette



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, prompted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 14:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriplePirouette/pseuds/TriplePirouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the prompt:'We’ve decided peasant Rumple is still in there somewhere and afraid of girls. So, to that end: “It’s not that he’s afraid of Belle. He simply hasn’t laid a hand on her yet because he’s afraid he might be really bad at, well…that.”'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doubt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenny/gifts).



> This is a Drabble for Jenny at AO3 who correctly guessed my allusion to “The Court Jester” first in “By Her Father's Hand.”

There were many things that Rumpelstiltskin, former coward and spinner, could count among blessings when it came to being the Dark One. There was the magic that gave him the ability to do nearly anything. There was near invincibility. There was longevity. There was status.

 

But, there was also something that he was less likely to shout from the towers of the Dark Castle that made him sigh with happiness: women were afraid of him. 

 

That meant they wouldn't talk to him, barely raised their eyes to him, and most definitely wanted nothing more than his deals from him. 

 

It was not a secret that the female form pleased him greatly, the courage that his magic provided gave him great freedom to look and leer, to enjoy without feeling ashamed and to concoct fantasies of a wide variety. But as his wife, long lost to him, loved to point out: he fumbled. He was awkward and a coward and stuttered when he talked to women, even when that woman was his own wife so very long ago. There was only so much that the curse could do for him, only so much it could hide and change, and he feared his human inadequacies with women was not one of the magic's benefits. 

 

He could not take the risk that it hadn't helped him in that very deficient area of his life. So, staying a good distance from women seemed the appropriate answer. 

 

Belle, however, made that near impossible, and he found the old cowardice and awkwardness creeping in his blood. He tried to keep his distance, but she was always  _bending over_ and  _smiling_ and  _falling_ and he really just couldn't help himself. He looked. He smiled back. He caught the clumsy girl lest she splatter on his floors. 

 

But he couldn't hold her. His hands would always shake when he was a human. 

 

And he hardly could kiss her. His wife had started turning her head away from his lips after a while, calling his affections 'fumbling' and 'sloppy.'

 

He absolutely could not bed her. The way his wife had shunned his attentions, made light of his desire for her, it was a wonder he'd ever had a son at all. 

 

But Belle brought the DESIRE up in him, the need to try these things and the feeling that, perhaps, she might be patient enough to teach him to be better at it. He watched her and wondered just how awful he might truly be; just how much he could fumble and she would still forgive him.

 

At night he fantasized. He imagined that the magic cured all of the faults in his manners, that he could court Belle with the suave grace of any king, that he could kiss her with the deftness of any rogue, and that he could please her so well in bed that she would cry his name. Sometimes, the visions were so vivid that he swore he could recreate them with no stumbles or foibles. 

 

But most of the time, his fear and doubt took over. So he watched her, his eyes tight to her form and her smile and her eyes, thinking that perhaps, one day, he might try again. 

 

But not today. 


End file.
